Survey by Swivel Secure: UK Bosses Slacking on Hacking

Business owner nonchalance makes UK firms easy targets for cybercrime

January 16, 2013 04:28 AM Eastern Standard Time

WETHERBY, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Company bosses across the UK have a complacent attitude toward
cybercrime and are inviting criminal attacks due to their sloppy
approach to internet security, reveals new research* announced today
from tokenless authentication provider, Swivel Secure.

According to the research, more than half of all business owners (51%)
are ‘unconcerned’ with the security of their corporate systems, with one
in four readily admitting to reusing the same username and password
across all their corporate and personal accounts, from their Facebook
page to their confidential corporate systems. A dramatic increase in the
online activity of business owners is compounding the risks. Four out of
five business owners now regularly use up to 50 websites that require a
username and password whereas just five years ago, the vast majority
(73%) accessed just 20 or less. Doing more online with the same username
and password greatly increases the chances of a fraudster, data thief,
saboteur, or even a disgruntled employee, obtaining these details and
exploiting them for criminal gain. 67% also admitted to keeping a
written log, or using a system of their own devising, to help them keep
track of the usernames and passwords they use regularly.

“Just as the government is waking up to cybercrime we discover that
company bosses are half asleep,” comments Chris Russell, VP Engineering,
Swivel Secure. “The problem is that business owners think that
cybercrime is something that happens to other people, without
appreciating the value of the data they hold and the motivations of
people who may want to access it. They read about security breaches at
big multinational firms like Google and LinkedIn, but don’t realise that
these same login details are probably also being used to access their
own systems. It’s time business owners realised that usernames and
passwords are actually not secure at all.”

“It’s a big problem that’s getting worse; company data is more at risk
than ever before,” continues Russell. “Bosses and employees now want to
connect their smartphones and tablets to their work systems. Flexible
working is gaining in popularity, so more of us are logging in remotely.
Too often, new working behaviours like these are still only protected by
outdated username and password gateways. And when, inevitably, they are
shared, lost, leaked or stolen, it really doesn’t matter how
impenetrable your corporate firewall is because you’ve done the digital
equivalent of handing over the keys to the safe.”

Perversely, almost three quarters of business owners (73%) confirmed
that they do, in fact, keep track of online security threats like
hackers, trojans and viruses, suggesting that the strength of their own
access credentials isn’t even registering with them as a potential weak
point in their security.

“The government claims cybercrime costs the UK economy £27 billion a
year,” adds Russell. “That’s the equivalent of building one of Boris
Johnson’s Thames Estuary airports every twelve months. You can’t help
but wonder how much of that could be saved if business owners took a few
simple steps to transition to a 21st century system for authenticating
users and protecting their corporate data.”

The Swivel authentication platform was first launched in 2003. It is now
used by local government, the NHS, major global enterprises and smaller
businesses in over 35 countries, to remotely access their business
networks, virtual desktops and cloud-based applications. A strong
alternative to usernames and passwords, the Swivel authentication
platform offers the widest range of user deployment options according to
Gartner, including mobile apps, SMS and interactive voice response
channels.

-ENDS-

* Independent survey of 200 UK business owners conducted by The
Leadership Factor in December 2012